If anything, there is one ingredient above all that can never be removed from a success formula; it is execution — the act of getting things done.
Quite frankly, you can proceed with your indefinite optimism. You can believe whatever you like. How magically tomorrow will turn blue and be better off.
Suddenly, you met a VC at a disco party. He instantly fell in love with your 3 months old startup and funded you all through to a massive acquisition by Facebook.
And your new book, the one sleeping in your head, became a New York Times bestseller. Amazon just ran out of stock for your title.
Please hold on tight to your dreams. They surely will come true.
I strongly believe you don’t really need a sermon for you to admit your cowardice and laziness. Essentially, nobody needs to teach you that the meal doesn’t cook itself — a chef must sweat in the kitchen.
Then, why haven’t you gotten your first book together?
All bestsellers start with a word, a phrase, and a sentence that proceed to the next. The science of achievements is self-explanatory: do things that count and count the things you have done. As a brilliant mind once echoed: what is not shipped, doesn’t tip.
Mastery is born of dedicated execution. What you don’t practice, you don’t master. These are pointers to the essential act of doing before expecting returns.
It is easy to write an article about execution or even a book or perhaps make a blockbuster.
Getting a wife is hard. Raising children is tougher. Reading a book on strategy is a nightmare. Starting a company, a total mystery.
It happens you lack execution because you are the very person faced with the world’s toughest decisions. Oh! I really get you.
Admit it. You are a unique piece of shit that loves to cajole his cowardice. I know exactly what you want. Well then, let me spill it to your faces.
There are two basic things that hold you back. A duo that torments all sorts of decisions that tilt to the path of greatness.
GUT
Tell me you are superman in a blue and red outfit. That you are one of the fantastic four. Yes sure, I really get your gist it just doesn’t freak me out.
We all lack gut in some sense — the confidence to execute. Of course, we all dreamt to be superheroes and rainmakers. That’s exactly why you get goosebumps watching spiderman adventures.
Only that your dream of heroism denies the basic reality of your timidity to ask Mary Jane for a kiss. You freak out when the real deal appears in the real world.
Some of us take the confidence to win a public speaking competition at its face value. We use that to justify our gut even when we are familiar with how much we tremble when ideas of starting a business flash through the mind.
Gut or its absence is relative to context. Many kids have grown wings enough to say shits to their parents’ faces but cringe in the face of a bully at school.
Most adults can flex muscle and act almighty in the sight of their close pals or partner. Give them the mic to make a toast, you have a bucket to fill right under their pants.
Wherever your weaknesses lie, fix them. Take the same gut you use at the football house to argue for Chelsea to face your boss for a new raise you truly deserve.
Man up in the things that matters the most. Quit your cowardice to join the league of high achievers. Look out for the things you feel you are absolutely in charge of and take that energy to all the other areas of your life lacking gut.
GRIT
But, then, your problem is grit — the discipline of execution. As I have envisaged this latter part of the article will be the hardest part for me to write.
Writing gets tougher down the page. The inspiration stains out. Each sentence becomes shorter and uncollected.
Nonetheless, I know quite well that true execution is getting things done. It is shipping that matters the most.
Grit is skin in the game. It is what Seth Godin describes in The Dip. The resistance is ready to work against you at every slightest chance.
Grit gets you to finish the manuscript and get it to publication. It takes sweat and blood to manifest anything tangible and worthy of attention.
Have the will to rewrite the entire draft. Expect several nights of coding and bug fixing before your startup will ever hit its 100th customer.
Forget the IPO and big sell out, it is definitely going to take more months and years than you presumed. Before, work your butt out.
You and your co-founders are not angels. Issues will arise and you will learn the tough truths. Many of the early days will be hard, grotesque, and painfully exhausting. Rejections are bound and their ripples are soul-crushing.
You will hate to read your own manuscript. Your writings will suck even in your own eyes. Grit is about perseverance and pushing through the dark days.
GUILT
Admit it.
You fear the negative outcome of execution so much it overwhelmed the positivity.
You are terrified of the critics. You don’t know for sure the outcome, but the negative is likely.
Even after the tears and tours, you feared the book might not make the bestseller list.
Despite coding up the startup and challenging investors to dream big with you and share in the bright future, the company might end up failing.
You are deeply afraid of the outcome that you guilt yourself not to start at all.
Here is the flip: think of the lives your book will transform. What about the values your startup will create?
Reverse engineer your thinking. Don’t dip yourself in the possibility of failures. Guilt yourself of what good will be lacking in the world when you fail to execute, build, and ship.
Know that the world will not change unless you change it.
For me, I dropped out of college in my final year to fully commit to running my digital agency. It took another heavy dose of gut to venture into my second company, KitCart, an e-commerce platform I started after five years of grits building the agency.
I have the option to negatively guilt myself off those actions as I may be ridiculed if these companies failed. The dichotomy of guilt is that there is a better option of seeing what in the world will not exist if I choose to restrain to my cocoon, take the easy road and ride along with the crowd.
Guilt yourself into execution. Stop selling yourself the negativity. Counter the defaults with a clear visualization of what will be missing or what will remain stagnant when you don’t dare to execute.
Conclusion
Borrow your gut from other areas of your life and pursue your desires. Nothing happens unless something is done.
Execution is the single most important pointer to success. It won’t, however, come to you on a bed of roses.
Be ready to grit through and manifest your dreams. Guilt yourself into execution.
